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A pretty good explaniation of why we are so screwed to on this abimisal 'Primary System' and four-year long election campaignes is found here.

A few, mostly Western states adopted primary elections in the late 19th century and during the Progressive Era, but the catalyst for their widespread adoption came during the election of 1968. The Vietnam War energized a large number of supporters of anti-war Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, but they had no say in the matter.

Vice President Hubert Humphrey—associated with the unpopular administration of Lyndon B. Johnson—did not compete in a single primary, yet controlled enough delegates to secure the Democratic nomination. This proved one of several factors behind rioting which broke out at the convention in Chicago.

Media images of the event—angry mobs facing down police—damaged the image of the Democratic Party, which appointed a commission headed by George McGovern to select a new, less controversial method of choosing nominees. The McGovern–Fraser Commission settled on the primary election, adopted by the Democratic National Committee in 1968. The Republicans adopted the primary as their preferred method in 1972.
Henceforth, candidates would be given convention delegates based on their performance in primaries, and these delegates were bound to vote for their candidate.
As a result, the major party presidential nominating convention has lost almost all of its old drama. The last attempt to release delegates from their candidates came in 1980, when Senator Ted Kennedy sought the votes of delegates held by incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter. The last major party convention whose outcome was in doubt was the 1976 Republican National Convention, when former California Governor Ronald Reagan nearly won the nomination away from the incumbent, Gerald Ford.
The rise in political consultants also led to a decrease in the role of political parties at conventions. Before the introduction of direct presidential primaries, and the media pressure to put the ‘exciting’ parts of the convention in prime time, political parties used to use their conventions to develop the platform and the tone for the general election.[10] Because of long primary season and the media scrutiny of the candidates the need for the candidates to hire Political consultant has grown. These consultants, not the party leaders, now determine who the convention speakers will be, the party platform and the tone of the general election.[11]
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_nominating_convention

Our system today is so totally screwed with these guys crawling through cornfields in Iowa, snow storms in New Hampshire, and kissing hogs in South Carolina while spending million and having to raise millions of dollars and in the process while savaging friends and naturaly allies over trivial dumb stuff just to try to pull in some few new voters. (Look at the total hatred some here on FreeRepublic have for Newt, Mitt, or Rick to see how destructive the primary system has become.)

The only people that benefit are the professional political consultants in Washington who get the millions from both sides and have all the loyalty of a hungry crocodile. And then there are MSM who have endless political stories hand feed them by cynical political consultants for four years, always reported from the left side of the spectrum.

The system sucks. Screw primaries. They are a distortion. They are a net negative for national office.